


Edge of Morning

by Hagar



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Assisted Suicide, Difficult Decisions, Fire, Fire-Related Injuries, Flashbacks, Gen, Mercy Killing, Nightmare Fuel, Nightmares, Original Character(s), PTSD, Season 03, Single POV, U. S. Navy, USS Stark, Veterans, anguish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwight isn’t there to clean the Trouble. He isn’t there to plant false evidence and false memories, and wipe the real ones away. He’s there for Ollie.  </p><p>Nightmares are their own kind of a bullet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edge of Morning

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Advisory:** This story includes a character who was injured in [the attack on the USS Stark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_incident%0A), physically and psychologically. Both kinds of injuries as well as the circumstances that led to them are depicted in the story. They’re the cause of significant anguish to the survivor and to persons around him. Please take this under advisement before proceeding with this story. 
> 
> Induced coma may be sustained [for periods up to at least five months](http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/03/health.coma.saves.life/%0A). That is not to say that extended induced comas are not without long-lasting complications, even in persons younger and healthier than the character for whom this option is discussed in the story. The opinions on the matter expressed by characters in the story should be considered in context of the prognosis for the character for whom this option is considered.
> 
> Beta by bessemerprocess and Sailor Sol.

Dwight is just wrapping up cleaning a Trouble at the south end of town when his phone rings. It’s the sort of a cleanup he wishes he had more often, the kind where he doesn’t need to scrub out blood, doesn’t need to rebuild anybody’s home, doesn’t even need to bring down a power line at one end of a street to draw attention away from the Trouble at the other end of it. All he needs to do this time is look people dead in the eye and relax his voice as he tells them one convenient lie after the other. If only all Troubles were this easy to clean.

Then his phone rings, and it’s Vince’s ringtone for the second time that day.  

Dwight knows better than to try and imagine what it might be each time that his phone rings and it’s a Teagues or a Wuornos;  he also answered those calls enough times that he knows, just from the split-second-longer pause between his own “Hendrickson” and Vince’s response that this is one of the bad ones - knows, even, that this Trouble is one of those that don’t need to kill a lot of people to be Bad; knows that it has to be a member of the Guard or at least someone who is under their direct protection, if Vince is the one making the call.

He’s somehow entirely unprepared for it when Vince says: “Ollie Clemens’ Trouble was triggered ten minutes ago.”

Dwight doesn’t look at his clock, doesn’t look at the sky. He knows what time it is. He still asks, “Is he at the docks?”

Vince says “Yes” and Dwight knows what he’s about to add before the pause between the words, before the _Yes_ is fully out of Vince’s mouth, even. Vince says: “I’m sorry.”

Dwight only says, “It’ll take me a few minutes to get there.”

 

* * *

 

Ollie Clemens came to Haven in the second half of 1987. He was 23 years old and had the bad luck of having been on the USS Stark when it was attacked by an Iraqi Mirage fighter jet, two miles outside the exclusion zone. The ship didn’t sink but other than that, it was about as bad as maritime incidents went. 29 men had been killed in the first 24 hours, before the surviving crew finally managed to put out the fire that ravaged their quarters and the ship’s operations center. Eight more died of their injuries later.

Ollie survived. He never wore short sleeves or short pants no matter how warm the weather got and he walked with a noticeable limp, but he survived. He wasn’t one of the lucky ones, not according to him. He’d lost a part of himself in that fire - 37 parts of himself, he told Dwight one drunken night - and then another one when his wife looked at his burns, lived through his nightmares, and walked out. The divorce was a good thing according to Ollie, particularly since they didn’t yet have any kids.

Dwight agreed with Ollie on that count.

 

* * *

 

He parked his truck 200 yards out of the docks. It’s outside Ollie’s range, but only just. Everyone else who could had already vacated the area. Dwight surveyed the line of people on his approach: Troubled or relatives of the Troubled, all of them. He expected as much. Ollie’s Trouble was one of those you didn’t want anyone exposed to who was unprepared.

Dwight isn’t there to clean the Trouble. He isn’t there to plant false evidence and false memories, and wipe the real ones away. He’s there for Ollie.

“Good luck,” Jerry says, grim as if Dwight is about to walk into an actual fire.

Dwight nods at him, but only because he can’t leave that entirely unanswered. The truth of it is that he wouldn’t have anyone else walk into this fire. The truth of it is that this is Dwight is for, what he is really for. Vince understood; Jerry didn’t.

Nightmares are their own kind of a bullet.

He knew exactly when he crosses the line into Ollie’s range, because the docks are gone and the cool of Maine autumn in gone, and instead he’s standing in a narrow too-hot corridor, struggling to breathe through the smoke. He has an oxygen tank in his car, but he didn’t bother to bring it. Ollie’s Trouble is all horror and no physical consequences, the feeling of burning heat and smoke inhalation without the burns and the lung damage to go with them.

If Ollie’s Trouble could cause direct physical harm, Ollie wouldn’t have survived the first time it erupted.

Dwight knows how to read bulkheads and find his way across this illusion of a ship he’s never set foot on because they always knew that should Ollie’s Trouble return it would be this. Ollie’s Trouble brings to life those memories that are sharp enough, and this has always been the one memory vivid enough to trigger it.

In the nightmare, the only other people on the ship are the ones who are dead or dying. Dwight passes several burnt bodies and human torches on his way to the barber shop, where he knows Ollie will be. He ignores them just like he ignors the feeling of his skin melting off, just like he wills his lungs into a steady rhythm despite the burning-hot smoke.  It’s not that it isn’t real; it is. But it happened to someone else, and 23 years before.

That’s what Dwight needs to remind Ollie of, but it’s several  minutes before Ollie even recognizes him. His eyes focus on him, and Dwight _knows_ even before he says a word because suddenly Dwight is a human torch, too.

In Ollie’s nightmares, everyone dies.

Dwight throws aside all the verbal de-escalation tactics he had planned. It’s a good thing he already pulled Ollie out from being partially trapped, because this needs a fast resolution. A sleeper hold provides the fastest, without risking injury to Ollie. And when the ship and the fire vanish and Ollie’s body goes lax, Dwight is holding him in his arms.

 

* * *

 

“Move over, Hendrickson.”

Dwight uncoils his body from the protective position he assumed over Ollie. The movement gives him time enough, reminds him to lay Ollie on the ground and give Doc room enough to work.

Sheila Martinez is the Guard’s medical doctor, when they absolutely have to use one. She’s 5’7” and whip-thin, the sort of a person who runs a 7 miles trail before breakfast. Nowadays she works as a GP, which lets her be a doctor while still being safe enough. She used to be an orthopedic surgeon - and a damn good one - before her Trouble erupted in the middle of a surgery. It was a hell of a way to discover she can directly feel the state of someone else’s body if she’s near enough - even if that person is unconscious.

General anesthesia keeps a person under, but it doesn’t actually do anything for the pain.

Her hands go to Ollie’s neck first, before checking him thoroughly for any injuries he may have given himself in his panic. Dwight is watching her closely, but her body doesn’t waver from the coil of the emergency doctor, calmly efficient on the surface and tightly wound underneath.

She doesn’t acknowledge Dwight again until she’s done ensuring that Ollie didn’t injure himself, and even then it’s just a quick glance as she reaches for her bag. “You taking him home?”

“Yes,” he acknowledges.

“All right then,” she says, and slips the needle into a vein. It won’t do to have Ollie wake up in panic while they’re driving. “I’ll ride up with you. I’ll have one of the boys drive behind us, drive me back to town later.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

That’s when she looks at him. She keeps looking at him and doesn’t quite step back as he picks Ollie up to carry him back to the truck, but she doesn’t say a word.

 

* * *

 

Doc doesn’t say a word the entire ride up to Ollie’s house. Once there, they settle Ollie on the living room sofa - easier to keep an eye on, for now - and there’s a moment of silent conversation before they decide who’ll monitor Ollie’s breathing and who’ll search the house for Ollie’s meds.

They lay Ollie’s day meds and night meds on the coffee table, work out his frequency of use from the script history. Doc isn’t that kind of a doctor, and this isn’t the usual way to deal with the Troubled. Her next stop is the Freddy; easier to do consultations in person. For the time being she selects a vial out of her bag. She holds it out to Dwight rather than put it on the table, forces him to actually take it from her hand; she does it with enough surety that he knows she’s had time to think about it.

It’s an order: _Next time, use this._ And the way in which she makes it an order - and Doc knows exactly what she’s doing, there - communicates quite clearly that it isn’t just Ollie she’s looking out for, here.

There really isn’t anyone else who’ll be safe with Ollie - who can keep Ollie safe - until they get this situation figured out. There’s a very good chance that Ollie’s Trouble will go off again before they manage that. Doc gets it. It’s not that she doesn’t resent the hell out of the situation - the tight press of her lips and the sharper-than-usual definition of the strap muscles in her neck say that she does - but she doesn’t invest in it, and she doesn’t invest in trying to fight it back, either. Instead she holds the vial out to Dwight - _Don’t tell me that didn’t hurt you, too_ \- and holds his gaze until he nods.

When she leaves, sitting by Ollie’s side is exactly like sitting guard by an injured buddy well behind enemy lines.

 

* * *

 

He can _feel_ Ollie becoming aware that there’s a world around him. “Ollie,” Dwight says, because the first name doesn’t belong in Ollie’s nightmares. “Ollie, you’re safe, you’re home. It’s 2010, and you’re home. You’re safe.”

Maybe it’s the words and maybe it’s the remains of the drug in his system, but at no point is even the smell of smoke in the house.

Eventually, Ollie says: “Fuck.”

“I’ll get you some coffee,” Dwight replies.

Ollie is still struggling to sit up on the couch when Dwight returns barely a moment later with a pot of coffee. Dwight knows better than to try and help; instead, he busies himself with going back to the kitchen to get Ollie some water, too.

“Fuck,” Ollie repeats as he accepts a cup of coffee. “Fucking curse is back, ain’t it. Fucking fuck.”

“Yes.”

“How long was I out?”

“A little less than an hour.”

“Did anyone…”

“You didn’t get anyone hurt.”

The look Ollie gives him says everything. “Don’t shit me, Hendrickson.”

“Shut up and drink your coffee, Clemens.”

They bitch each other out until Ollie had half the pot and two glasses of water and is about as put-together as he’s going to get.

Ollie puts the cup down. “So. Fucking curse is back.”

Dwight knows Ollie better than to say nothing, or to say anything more other than “Yes, it is.”

“Shouldn’t’ve given me that coffee. I’m going to go off again soon as it’s done burning the cobwebs from my brain.”

“Keep thinking that way and it will.”

“I know my fucked-up brain, kid.”

“Like hell I was going to put up with you without coffee, Clemens.”

Dwight is actually thinking that it might be time to try Ollie with some food when everything turns to metal, smoke and open flame again. It’s a good thing that Dwight kept the vial in his pocket, or he’ll never be able to find it now. He tears the sterile wrapper off the syringe and the needle, preps the injection, caps the needle again and puts it back in his pocket before he gets into Ollie’s line of sight. As soon as he does it feels as if he’s on fire, again, but this time Dwight doesn’t need to remove Ollie from wreckage that isn’t there, just locate a vein in his wrist, jab the needle in and depress.

He brought the kit from his truck earlier, so he has an alcohol swab to dab against the injection site and a biohazard bag for the used syringe and needle. He deals with those things first and arranges Ollie as comfortable as possible on the couch before going to the kitchen, where he locates a carton of apple juice and a plastic cup and forces himself to drink, reminds himself _Small sips, Hendrickson, small Sips,_ just like he would anyone else.

Ollie was under for almost an hour before. It gives Dwight almost forty minutes to decide whether to call Doc and tell her that they need to take Ollie to the hospital and have the doctors there put him in an induced coma until the smart guys at the Freddy work out a drug regime that Ollie will consent to, rather than wash his drugs down the toilet and eat his gun instead.

 

* * *

 

The first phone call comes maybe three minutes after. It’s Nathan. “Yeah.”

“So I heard there was a Trouble at the docks earlier.” Nathan’s voice is a professional sort of guarded. It isn’t wary. “The nice people with the tattoos who work there won’t give me the time of day, but a little birdie told me that you may have been there.”

It’s not a difficult math to work out. “Does the little birdie’s name begin with an L?”

“Were you there?” Nathan counters.

“Yeah, I was there.” And Doc and the Freddy’s staff decided to consult with Lucassi. “It’s not going to become a police matter.”

“It was still a Trouble.” Nathan’s voice drops out of the police register. “Anything I can do to help?”

Lucassi is the best psychopharm in Haven and can probably figure out a way out of Ollie’s med history, but he’ll need time. It’s Dwight’s job to give him this time. “Actually - can you make a run to Rosemary’s?”

“You serious?”

“Absolutely.”

Nathan’s voice changes timber again, from concern to the kind of overly serious that is a fond kind of a joke. “Now that I think about it, fresh pastries seem like the perfect way to solve a Trouble.”

The second phone call comes so quickly on the heels of the first that Dwight is fairly certain Claire Callahan was at the police station when Nathan called. “Tell me it wasn’t Ollie Clemens.”

“It’s Ollie Clemens.”

“Dwight, there’s something that you need to know.” Claire doesn’t take that tone with him, the one that’s meant to grab attention with its urgency, and that’s what really gets Dwight’s attention. “The Hunter comes in 42 days.”

“And when the Hunter comes…”

“The Troubles go away. Six weeks, Dwight. It’s only six weeks.”

Claire is only ten or fifteen minutes away, downtown, but she may as well be on a different continent. May as well be on a different planet. Dwight doesn’t tell her that and he’s conscious to relax his throat before saying: “I’ll tell Ollie that.”

“Are you all right?”

“He’s sleeping it off right now.”

Claire’s voice turns from urgency to exasperation. “Ollie had at least one overly vivid flashback today and, from the way you sound? I’d make that two and add that no, you’re not all right, either.”

It actually gets him to resent her less, because she’s right: that he just verbally deflected says nothing good about how he’s coping, and he might have refused to acknowledge this if Claire hadn’t made him pay attention.

You don’t make it through the training that Dwight had if you don’t know to _not_ be reckless with your life. You don’t make it through if you hesitate about throwing yourself into the fire, either, but you have to be able to tell when it’s genuinely necessary and when it seems like the easier way when all it really is, is reckless and stupid.

There are circumstances where everyone thinks _Please, God, let it be me and not them._ For most it’s only a thought, and one they know to keep their bodies and faces from betraying. For Dwight, his Trouble betrayed it, and once it turned on it won’t turn off again. Dwight has been living with it for nine years, now. He’s said it out loud even, spelled it with words and meant it: _Let me take that bullet for you._

But if he doesn’t take sufficient care of himself he won’t be able to care for others, and he shouldn’t have needed to be reminded.

“Thanks,” he tells Claire.

“Would it hurt if I came over?”

Another person would ask if it would help, but Claire knows better. “Probably. He’s only just dealing with me.”

“Okay. You know where I am.”

He pours the last of the coffee into a cup, puts up a new pot, adds too much sugar to the cup and takes it outside. It’s not long before Nathan is there, with a carton box that smells of apples, vanilla and chocolate.

It’s only Nathan in the Bronco.

“Neighbour dispute,” he explains as he hands the box over to Dwight. So that's where Audrey is that isn’t there. “Audrey likes them. You shouldn’t believe anything is she says.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dwight says, straight faced.

“I may have failed to say it’s a Trouble,” Nathan adds. “I looked up the address. The Chief had a note on Ollie Clemens.”

That’s not much of a surprise. Garland liked to be prepared, and he knew what was important. “What did it say?”

“To stay away. What the hell kind of a Trouble is it, Dwight?”

“One that isn’t going to hurt anyone else. I got it, Nathan.”

“You know I can…”

Audrey Parker’s good with the Troubles, that’s true; she’s good with the Troubled, even. But being protected from Ollie’s Trouble may not enable her to help him better and besides, what she’s good at is not what this is about, not really. “Can she make a 23-year-old case of PTSD go away?”

“No,” Nathan admits after a moment. He gestures towards the box of pastries. “Are you sure those are all you need?”

“Yeah. Actually, those should really help.”

“If you say so. Call me,” Nathan emphasizes again, and then he’s gone.

Dwight takes the empty coffee cup and the box of pastries inside. He sets the oven to the very lowest setting and slides in a tray with a few pastries on it.  

He counts the minutes, knowing how long it was before Ollie woke up before and knowing that it was a lower dose this time. When it seems like Ollie might wake up soon Dwight shifts the hot pastries to a plate which he puts on the kitchen table, slides in a new batch, pours himself a coffee - diluted with water this time, because Ollie drinks tar - and takes it outside, though not before making sure - again - that he has the vial and a fresh syringe and needle in his pocket.

He makes himself sit down, very nearly regrets that he doesn’t smoke, and settles in to wait.

He’s almost finished the coffee before there’s muffled swearing from inside. Dwight makes himself drink the rest of the coffee even more slowly, and count the seconds. One minute later he’s still looking at a quiet Haven street and breathing in air that smells like water and green things, so it seems waking up alone did not trigger another episode.

It’s a while more before he thinks he can hear-feel approaching steps from inside the house, and then there’s the click of a door and the very faint sound of retreating steps. Dwight gives it another moment before he stands up and comes back inside.

Inside smells exactly as good as Dwight hoped it would, and Ollie’s in the kitchen working through the pastries as if the sedative didn’t upset his stomach at all. Dwight pauses a few feet out of the entrance to the kitchen. Ollie looks like hell, but -

Ollie does something that isn't quite a nod, and Dwight comes into the kitchen. “Better?” he asks.

“I think I might not need to get knocked out for the third time in as many hours, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s a start.”

“That’s all it is. I have nightmares, Hendrickson. They never stopped.”

“Doc Martinez is working that angle.”

“I’ve been taking that crap for the past twenty years. None of it works right on me, anymore.”

“That’s what she got Lucassi on board for.”

“Lucassi and his fucking experiments. Do you know how long that’s going to take? Because I don’t. We don’t know how long any of this -”

“Six weeks.” Ollie stares at him. Dwight repeats it: “Six weeks. And then the Troubles are gone for another 27 years.”

“And if I’m lucky I’ll be dead by then.”

“You’re 46, Ollie.”

“46 and feeling like 64.”

Dwight gives serious consideration to whistling the Beatles. By Ollie’s expression, he realizes what almost happened, too.

Dwight shakes his head. “Come on. Pastries aren’t dinner. Not even Rosemary’s.”

 

* * *

 

Doc Martinez drops by later in the afternoon, in her own car this time. She brings in another bottle of pills to add to the others, and very precise instructions about what Ollie should take, with what, at what doses and at which times.

Dwight still wakes up in the middle of the night choking on smoke that isn’t there but feels like it is. A glance at his watch reveals that it’s too early, far too early to give Ollie more of anything. He’s going to have to first pull Ollie out of the wreckage again, like he did that morning.

He does what needs to be done, makes sure Ollie is as fine as he can be, then blanks out on the few seconds between that, and standing in the kitchen with a glass of apple juice in hand and the taste of it still on his tongue, his eyes stinging.

You don’t get a Ranger tab - let alone get into the 75th - unless your pain tolerance was through the roof to begin with and then got pulled even higher. Setting your own broken leg is nothing like being burned alive, though, and with Ollie’s Trouble active going near him in an episode means that it feels as if you’re burning alive. And with Ollie’s Trouble active, the flashbacks are a lot more violent and so each flashback triggers another, bunched together closer in time then they were before.

He doesn’t like what tonight says about the docs’ ability to balance Ollie’s meds. Ollie isn’t going to like it, either, and anyone who knows Ollie’s history knows what he’s going to do about that.

He tried before.

 

* * *

 

He makes Ollie swallow more of the pills once he’s coherent enough to not choke on them. He saves the vial. That stuff’s not meant to be long-acting. A higher dose won’t keep Ollie down for longer, it will just kill. It may be possible to circumvent that with an IV drip; Dwight has the materials and the manual skill to set up an IV, but he elects to not wake up Doc Martinez or Lucassi for directions on dosing.

Choosing which drugs to give Ollie more of is a bet. Choosing what not to give him more of for the time being is a bet also. Both are calculated bets.

Come morning Ollie is still breathing and haven’t had another nightmare, so in that respect the bets paid off. Dwight is making eggs and bacon and half-heartedly wishing for decaf tea while Ollie is having more coffee and arguing with Doc Martinez on the phone.

He glares as Dwight shovels food into his plate, but it’s not the food he’s glaring at.

“Well,” he says as Dwight shovels some food unto his own plate, puts the pan down in the middle and sits down across from Ollie, “this is not half-bad, as last meals go.”

“What’d Doc say?”

“Nothing that’ll help. She needs to talk to the other docs again, same old crap. They’ll want to put me on the zombie pills again.”

“What did she say about what happened last night?”

Ollie’s hand clenches on the fork handle, hard. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

And that’s the crux of it: it’s not just that the Docs will recommend to up Ollie’s drugs to what he calls the “zombie pills”, and not without merit. That’s the sort of shit you do in a psych crisis, and for six weeks it’s acceptable, even if withdrawal will be unpleasant and even if Ollie will avoid going to a doctor for anything for years after - they’d have to plan it to not give Ollie reasons to avoid Dwight, too.

Except they won’t, because they don’t even know if the heavy-duty drugs will work. Last night’s cocktail was supposed to be bulletproof.

Dwight doesn’t need to ask to know what Doc had to say about that. He knows there are very few things more stubborn than a good doctor who thinks she can help a patient, if she could only have a little more time. Lucassi will say the same thing. That attitude is part of what makes them so good, most of the time.

“You should leave once we’re done here,” Ollie says, indicating the food. “Don’t bother about the dishes.”

Dwight pulls out the vial, syringe and needle and puts them on the table, between them. “There’s enough here.”

“The fuck, Hendrickson?”

“I know where your guns are, Ollie. I found them yesterday. If you want to go that way, I won’t stop you. But you don’t have to die alone.” He pauses for a moment to let the words sink in. “Now it can also be a knife, or a broken neck, or even an air bubble in an artery. But you can have a non-violent death, if you want it. There’s enough for that here.”

Ollie is going to die. That’s a fact. He’s not going to make it six weeks. He will kill himself the second he isn’t watched. The only way to keep Ollie contained is with an induced coma. That they will have to do it against his will is almost inconsequential. Doctors will do that and call it ethical, if it’s to save a patient’s life and they can talk themselves into believing that the patient is in no state to make decisions. There’s also that six weeks is unacceptably long for an induced coma. It’s a risk Dwight knows the doctors will take. First because it’s a chance of saving Ollie’s life, brain damage be damned, and second because they will believe that they’ll figure out a lesser option before the six weeks are up.

There is also that at this point, they don’t know if it will even work.

The only way an induced coma will be worth it is if the docs will figure out an alternative solution quickly enough that Ollie has a chance to recover from the damages inherent in sedation that deep. Even then, Ollie will kill himself the second he’s clear-headed. Unlike the 1980s, this time he won’t try, he’ll succeed.

He might do it even if, by the next time he’s clear-headed, the Troubles will be gone again. He will never consent to an induced coma. He’ll never let any of them close enough to help again, if they do that to him.

It’s not until they’re done eating that Ollie says: “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

It’s Ollie who insists Dwight wears gloves as he prepares the injection. Dwight knows nobody in Haven PD will charge him for murder. Nathan might consider the idea for a few minutes but Audrey Parker can be sold a sob story - and even if not, Dwight knows what she had Duke Crocker do less than a week before. Either of them would override Bowen, who’s only been in town for half a day longer than Harry Nix was dead. Lucassi was a psychiatrist before he chose to work with patients who were already dead, and that says enough.

Dwight doesn’t need to wear gloves and Ollie’s hand doesn’t need to be underneath Dwight’s as they depress the syringe, but those things make Ollie happy or as close to it as he gets.

Those are the things that matter: that Ollie smiles as Dwight inserts the needle, that his shoulders sag before they depress the syringe. That the only things Dwight has to clean are the dishes in the sink, and not blood and brain spatter and pieces of skull off the wall.

He holds Ollie’s hand, forefinger laying gently over the pulse point, until Ollie’s blood pressure drops low enough that his pulse can’t be palpated there, anymore. Then Dwight puts his other hand at Ollie’s neck, until he’s sure Ollie’s heart stopped.

He gives it five more minutes.

He hesitates over the phone. Eventually he calls Vince first. He reasons that it’s because Vince is the one who asked him to look for Ollie and because Ollie is one of the Guard’s charges. Those things are true, but it’s also true that Dwight doesn’t want to say “Ollie is dead” for the first time to Doc if he doesn’t have to.

Vince also says that he and Dave will take care of the funeral, as if there was never any other option. There really wasn’t, to Vince. Dave will eyeroll at his brother’s sentimentality, but he won’t get in Vince’s way any more than Vince asked for Dave’s opinion, which is none at all.

Vince doesn’t ask, and Doc doesn’t need to because Dwight tells her. He respects her too much for anything else to be an option. She’s silent for a long time before she says in a voice full of tears “I was hoping -” True to form, it’s the only thing she says. She hands the phone to Lucassi for Dwight to break the news to him, and that’s the closest thing to anger she’ll ever do.

Lucassi says “At least it’s you” like he’s disgusted with the world, and then hurriedly explains that he meant things like blood and fingerprints. Dwight believes him.

Nathan and Audrey are an entirely different conversation and in the end, Dwight has to pull his ace.

 

* * *

 

He goes home, showers, and sleep for three hours.

He skips lunch, because he can deal with skipping a meal and he’ll feel better for allowing himself this.

He returns Claire’s call because he really has been asleep and wasn’t avoiding her. He’s exhausted enough and upset enough to tell her that skipping lunch seemed like the better option; she replies that she’s glad he’s taking care of himself, unhesitatingly and without a trace of irony; he’s not sure if he should’ve expected that or not but either way, he’s glad for it.

He doesn’t usually consider the option of getting drunk. Drinking is a passive way of coping, passive and indirect, having yourself changed rather than acting the change, in yourself or in the world. There’s also that he’s been thinking of Haven as a war zone for way too long to be able to have more than a single beer outside his home without knowing who’s the buddy who is watching his back.

That’s one of the reasons that when he leaves his house, he goes to the Gull. Duke Crocker is a lot of things, and one of them is good at staying alive. In the five months that the Grey Gull has been in operations it became the place where people checked the conflict at the door - not despite but because of the owner’s position, trapped between the Church and the Guard the way he is.

This also makes the Gull the best place in town to watch people be _people,_ and that’s what Dwight needs the most.

There’s another reason the Gull is a good idea.

He hangs by the bar with his beer because there is no free table he likes. It puts him in the best position to snag a table if one opens that he does, and it’s better than standing if not. Turns out, sitting at the bar also makes it easier for Duke to catch his eye before sending one of the busboys to clean a table, specifying which table in excessive detail rather than the number the table must have. It gives Dwight the only table in the room that has both its back to a corner and a full view of the room and both doors.

Ten minutes later Duke shows up at Dwight’s table with two shots of vodka and a small bowl of pickles and pulls himself a chair.

“It would be pointless to say that I didn’t order this, wouldn’t it.”

“Yes,” Duke announces. “Because you look like you could use a lot more of this. And frankly? When you look like that, I start getting worried.”

“All taken care of,” Dwight promises.

They knock back their shots. It’s far better vodka than Dwight ever bothered to order; still doesn’t explain why anyone would like it for any reason other than ease of getting drunk.

Duke pulls himself up. He looks as if he’s already had too much to drink, but it’s artful deceit. “If you say so,” he declares, and goes back to his post.

The fries arrive some time after that. Dwight didn’t order those either, or the second beer for that matter, but the fries look and smell as if they might be the best that he had in a long time and also, Dwight doesn’t have it in him to tell the girl to take the food back.

He doesn’t doubt that Duke chose that waitress exactly for that reason, but the fries really are that good and once he starts eating he realizes that he’s only had two proper meals in two days, both of which were breakfast.

It’s Friday.

At some point he asks for a soda because sitting at a bar with an empty glass is asking for attention. When the waitress - same one  - asks if he’d like anything else besides it he says “Yes”, and doesn’t specify.

He’s not sure if the meat sandwich really is this good or if it’s the atmosphere.

Last call at the Gull is fantastically elaborate.

Dwight only asks for the check.

Instead, Duke drops at his table again with two dainty glasses as the staff begin to close around them, encouraging everyone else to go home.

“Umeshu,” he says, like it’s some kind of an explanation. “Since I don’t figure you for the grappa type.”

“Duke…” It comes out something like a warning.

“Audrey called earlier today,” Duke says abruptly.

It’s a moment before Dwight says: “She shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah,” Duke says. It sounds reasonably neutral and yet very much off, and he follows it up with: “The irony didn’t to occur to her.”

“The irony being…?”

“That she called me to vent.”

That doesn’t actually surprise Dwight that much. He tastes the amber liquid. “It’s sweet.”

“Well, yeah, it’s plum wine, what did you expect?”

“You served me plum wine. _You’re_ drinking plum wine.”

“Tell me you don’t like it.”

He can’t. It’s delicate and surprisingly complex, and the sweetness isn’t overbearing.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Duke is looking down at his glass; he put the slightest emphasis on the last word.

The question honestly surprises Dwight. Duke had punched him clean off the Rouge, yes, but Dwight had seen him at the Inn and over the past week. So far, Duke is nothing like the horror stories Dwight has heard about Simon Crocker’s time.

Then Duke looks up and meets his eyes, and Dwight knows.

“Because it wasn’t necessary,” he answers.

Duke studies him for a long moment. “It wasn’t about his Trouble.”

“It was, and it wasn’t.” It makes Dwight feel impatient, but Duke does, actually, deserve this explanation. “We wouldn’t have ended up there if Ollie’s Trouble didn’t erupt again, but it -” _It wasn’t like Harry Nix._ “Ollie didn’t have children.” He might have other surviving relatives out there who could theoretically benefit from the family Trouble being eradicated, they or their children, but: “It wasn’t necessary.”

Duke blinks, once. “Ollie was your friend.”

It’s the best word the English language has for that. “Yeah.”

Duke is still studying him intently. “I was going to say that you didn’t have to - but that’s exactly why you had to, isn’t it.”

Dwight intends to just nod. The “Yeah” comes out anyway, almost more of a sigh than a word.

“Okay.” Duke says that as if they just settled something. Around them, only the staff is left. “But you’re still not paying for anything tonight.”

Dwight doesn’t protest. Duke is a lot of things, and one of them - Dwight just learned - is a man who understands necessity. It means Duke gets to do things like that. It means Dwight doesn’t even want to tell him not to.

“Thanks.”

Duke pushes himself up. “Now shoo, go away. I need to let those fine people off for the night. If you’re too drunk to drive, which I don’t think you are, but if you are, I’m sure most of the girls and some of the boys would be absolutely happy to assist.”

“Duke…” The warning is only partially playful, because Dwight is really not sure whether or not Duke is joking.

“You know what they say: after all, a new day started… an hour and a half ago.”

It’s something of a surprise, but Dwight thinks that when he gets home - and Duke wasn’t kidding, Dwight really does get a few hopeful looks - he will be able to fall asleep, and continue to sleep until morning.


End file.
